Sermons of Maximus of Turin (Bruni's collection) 20.1–26.1

We ought, dearest brothers, to receive these days of holy Lent with all reverence and not to be weary of the rather long number of this season; because the more days of fasting, the greater the means of remedy; the longer the course of abstinence, the more abundant the redemption of salvation; the more severe the treatment of wounds, the more healthful the medicine for sins. For God, who is the physician of our souls, appointed a fitting time, which is enough for the righteous to pray and suffices for sinners to plead, the former asking for rest, the latter begging for pardon. For Lent is a fitting time: neither short for entreating nor long for meriting. For by forty days of fasting any iniquity of a sinner can be prayed away, and any severity of the judge softened. The time may perhaps be long and wearisome to one who neither prays about his fault nor hopes for pardon. For despair knows neither how to confess its crime nor how to hope for indulgence from the judge. Holy, then, and saving is the observance of Lent, by which the judge is led to mercy, the sinner to repentance, the righteous to rest. For in these days, more than usual, the Godhead has mercy, the offender pleads, and righteousness merits. For all things lie open: the heavens to pardon, the sinner to confess, the tongue to ask. Saving, I say, and mystical is the number forty. For at first, when the iniquity of men possessed the face of the world, through the course of so many days God poured rains from heaven and flooded the whole earth with the deluge. You see, then, that already at that time the mystery was arranged in a figure. For as then, so now, he has mercy for forty days to purify man. Indeed, the flood of that time should also be called mercy, by which iniquity was crushed and righteousness preserved. For it was done out of mercy that the righteous escaped and the unrighteous sinned no more. Plainly we see that that flood was a mercy by which, as by a kind of baptism, the face of the whole world was renewed: so that what was filthy with the crime of lost men might flourish to grace by the dwelling of blessed Noah, and what was then a brothel of iniquity might now become a home of holiness. That flood, I say, was a likeness of this baptism of ours. For what is done now was done then: that is, with the springs of waters overflowing, vices were endangered and righteousness alone reigned; sins were plunged into the deep, and holiness was carried up near heaven. For then, as I said, was done what is now done in the Church of Christ. For as Noah was borne on the water while all vices were drowned, so the Church is carried near heaven by the font of baptism, and, all the superstitions of idols cast down, faith reigns on the earth, which goes out from the ark of the Saviour. Holy and sacred, then, is the season of Lent, which from the very beginning began to distinguish between the righteous and the unrighteous, and to separate the good from the bad by a kind of judgment. We see the same done also in this observance of Lent of ours. For through these forty days the bad are separated from the good, that is, the luxurious from the chaste, the intemperate from the one who fasts, the pagan from the Christian; the bad, I say, is separated from the good, that is, the sinner from the righteous, the devil from the saint, the heretic from the faithful. For when all these are left behind, as in the likeness of the flood, in the shipwreck of the world, the Church alone, like that ark, is lifted on high with her virtues. For we too, though sinners, in imitation of holy Noah, announce to you that the destruction of the world is coming; and we say that only those will escape the danger whom the threefold ark has enclosed within itself in the bosom of religion. For the Church is a threefold ark, because it contains the sacrament of the Trinity. For when Scripture says that it had two storeys and three storeys, it certainly shows that it is distinguished by the threefold grace of the Godhead. We announce, then, like Noah, that the shipwreck of the world is coming, and we urge all men to flee for refuge to this house. And as Noah received his sons in the ark, so we too desire to receive our sons in this ark. For whoever wishes to dwell with us in this house is our son. But someone says that the voice of holy Noah's preaching is nowhere recorded in the Scriptures. Listen, then: Noah, though silent in voice, spoke by his work; his tongue was still, his building cried aloud. For when he was making a new work, never known before, he was warning all that new shelters must be prepared for new dangers. He spoke, then, by his work, and said that saying of the Lord in the Gospel: “If you do not believe me, believe the works,” and by believing you can escape the danger; by the gift of our Lord Jesus Christ, who lives and reigns with the Father and the Holy Spirit for ages of ages. Amen.

The venerable and healing season of Lent is upon us, dearly beloved, in which by fasting we ought to treat the wounds of our sins. Let us discuss, then, with examples added, how great a good fasting is. Moses first, when he had fasted forty days and nights, was found worthy to receive the law of the Lord: for the fasts of one man obtained what the fullness of the whole people had despaired of. Let us notice, then, how great a distance there is between fasting and fullness. Moses, who fasted, saw the Lord. The people, who ate and drank, fashioned idols. But why should I speak of Moses and the multitude of Israel? Adam, that first of the human race, as long as he fasted, kept the Lord's command and was in paradise. But when he ate, he was cast out of paradise; and he who had been a virgin in God's paradise, cast out of paradise, knew his wife. For lust is always joined to fullness. Food, then, cast us out of paradise; let hunger lead us back, let fasting lead us back. We have said what holy Moses merited by fasting; let us now look at all the others. Even the elements served holy Elijah as he fasted. He, indeed, shut heaven for three years and six months. At his voice fire also came down from above. And when Queen Jezebel wished to kill him and he lay weary under a leafy tree in the solitude, an angel was sent to him and said to him: “Take a little bread and water.” See, dearly beloved, how great is God's kindness toward those who fast. It was not enough that the Lord had sent an angel to the fasting man to bid him take food; he also commanded him to flee farther from his persecutor. He said, then: “Take a little bread and water.” For he was to go on with a fast of forty days through the desert as far as Mount Sinai. Could not the Lord, who made heaven and earth, to whom every creature belongs, have sent a meal into the wilderness by an angel, as he sent one to Daniel in the lions' den by Habakkuk? But God knew that his prophet could not otherwise overcome the devil who was tempting him, unless, schooled by fasting, he repelled the temptations of the enemy lying in wait. Daniel too, that man who knew the future, who was aware of the Lord's coming, and who most clearly foretold the overthrow of Jerusalem, was called a man of desires because he did not eat the bread of desire and did not drink the drink of craving, since he desired Christ more than feasts. John too, the Lord's forerunner, is nourished in the wilderness on locusts and wild honey; he is not fed on the flesh of animals nor on the dainties of birds. Placed by the Jordan, he could certainly have provided himself with the delicacies of fish; but since he was to preach repentance, he had to show the rigour of fasting by his own example and deeds rather than by voice. In the Gospel too, when a man full of a demon was brought to the Lord, whom the apostles had not been able to cure, they asked and heard from the Lord that this kind could not be cast out except by prayer and fasting. See, then, brothers, how great is the power of fasting, that fasts can do what the apostles could not. I pass over the rest; but let each consider how great is the difference between fasting and fullness, between an empty belly and a stuffed one, between a red face and pale features, between a fasting mouth and lips loosened by drunkenness, between one weighed down by feasts and one kept watchful by the thinness of hunger. I do not speak of weeks, nor of doubled or multiplied fasts; but let us at least pass single days without excess of food. Let baths, wine, and meat cease—not that we judge God's creation to be condemned; but having lived for ourselves the whole year, let us live at least a few days for the Lord. But so that our fasts may be full and well supplied, let them be fattened with the richness of mercy. Let us give our bread to the hungry. Nor let us think that fasts alone suffice to heal the wounds of sins unless they are revived by the medicine of almsgiving. Let your fast chasten you, then, but gladden another; and so your straits will be fruitful if they give another breadth. Fast in such a way that you rejoice that you have dined in another who eats; for “God loves a cheerful giver.” For when the poor man eats of your goods, Christ dines, who testifies that he hungers in the poor. The end.

Although, brothers, we ought to strive toward the heavenly homeland through the whole time of our life, yet especially in these holy days of Lent we must exert ourselves as much as we can … For this number of forty days, as we have several times made known to your holiness, is mystical and consecrated in the sacred Scriptures. For you know, as we have often said, that holy Moses, in order to be found worthy to receive from him the tablets written by the finger of God, abstained from all food and drink for the number of forty days and nights. We added also that blessed Elijah, after a fast continued for forty days, was carried up to heaven in a fiery chariot. And not by these only but by other examples of the old law too we have shown it. Indeed, we added the example of our Lord and Saviour himself, who, to prepare himself for the preaching of his Gospel, abstained from all food and drink for the number of forty days and nights; and so from the devil's temptations … [Two leaves are missing in the original; then the following fragment follows.]

But what profit is it to a man if his body fasts from food but his mind does not fast? What if you abstain from food and do what is forbidden? If you persecute the orphan, if the widow … Then your fasts will be pleasing and acceptable to God, if you give back what belongs to another that you are holding; if you forgive a brother who has troubled you; if you abstain from another man's wife; if you give alms to the poor from what is yours … [Fifteen lines are missing in the original.] May the divine mercy, then, grant you this, that by fasts, alms, and holy works you may be found worthy to attain eternal life. The end.

How our Lord and Redeemer consecrated the days of holy Lent, whose beginning we keep today, and how also Moses and Elijah sanctified them under the Old Testament, we have already told you several times, brothers. And indeed we have already explained to your holiness on other occasions that in those forty days in which Moses and Elijah kept holy fasts under the old law they in a manner fasted a Lent, and so prefigured as a type the holy fast which we begin today. … For if Moses, the leader and saviour of the people of Israel, who spent his life so spotlessly that he was found worthy to speak several times with the Lord face to face, as a friend usually speaks with his friend, [fasted], why shall we, who are pressed down by the weight of countless offences and distressed, not keep the holy fasts? If he who was righteous and holy fasted, why are we, who are unjust and sinners, unwilling to do it? If he who was humble, meek, and chaste … why do we, proud, angry, and incontinent, neglect to do it? If, finally, he who [loved] God in all things and above all things with the whole affection of his mind … why do we, who always savour earthly things, [cling] to them with the whole affection of the mind … think always of these things, but never of God in these days of holy Lent by fasting … But … why Moses kept the holy fasts of forty days: so that, says the divine word, he might be found worthy to receive the law of God. [Three leaves are missing here in the original; the end is as follows.]

By believing, then, and by clinging steadfastly to good works, we shall be able to overcome the danger we see; by the gift of our Lord Jesus Christ. The end.

Since, brothers, on this day we keep the most sacred beginning of Lent, [let us speak] with your holiness about the fast of Lent … [These words are entirely lost in the original; a whole leaf is also missing, and nothing remains but the following fragment.] … therefore let the mind fast above all from evil things. For whoever devoutly lays holy fasts upon his body first renounces the vices to which he formerly clung in his misery, suppresses the tinder of depraved desire, breaks the onslaughts of Satan on the mind, conquers blind lust, puts out the torches of avarice, extends more widely the force of love in good works, and gives the revenues of his own estate for the feeding of the poor. And then he will surely be able to obtain what he ardently desires, if he walks in the care of holy observance with a chaste body and a devoted mind. These, brothers, are the things by which a man, even when refreshed with food, often obtains what he longs for, and by fasting attains greater rewards of holiness. Such a fast delights Christ: one which no empty desire of gaining temporal glory or of heaping up great wealth inflames, but which a sincere disposition of religion always drives, and a devoted … ; and when duties of full piety have accompanied it, as much as he is able, so much will he profit; and by acting so he will always have the Lord present and favourable at once. Fulfil, then, the duties of holy mercy, and you have sanctified your fasts. Clothe the naked; strive to receive the stranger with hospitality. [Ten lines are wanting here.] The end.

We said last Sunday that this is the first work of our faith: to fast most devoutly through the course of these forty days, and that this is the cause of our salvation, if we give ourselves to abstinence at this time. And so, dearly beloved brothers, we ought to look at the form of this fast, so that we may consider how great its usefulness is. For a fast is sometimes useless and empty, which, though it drains the belly and all the inner parts of the juice of fullness, is not acceptable to God, because it does not at all empty the mind and the inmost senses of the bond of iniquity. For what profit is it to fast in the bowels and to run riot in hunting; to abstain from food and stray in sins; to chastise the body with hunger, perhaps not to drink wine, and to walk about drunk with thoughts of malice? Except that the case of a man who is full or tipsy is easier than that of one who is at once wicked and fasting. For the former sometimes stops sinning, since when drunk he sometimes falls asleep; but the latter, practised in evil, does not cease erring, since through his fasts he is always awake. Useless and empty, therefore, is such a fast, which weakens the middle members and does not free the soul from perdition; of which fast the holy prophet says in the person of the Lord: “Do you fast for me? I have not chosen such a fast, says the Lord.” Or do you think, brothers, that he is fasting who at first dawn does not keep vigil at church, does not seek out the holy places of the blessed martyrs, but on rising gathers his servants, sets out nets, brings out the dogs, and scours the glades and woods? He drags his servants with him, I say, who perhaps would rather come to church, and heaps others' sins onto his own pleasures, not knowing that he will be guilty both of his own offence and of the perdition of his servants. He spends the whole day in hunting, now letting out an immoderate shout, now secretly commanding silence; glad if he has caught something, angry if he has lost what he did not have; and he carries it on with such zeal, as though the fast had been proclaimed so that he might hunt. In these luxuries, then, brothers, tell me, what worship of God is there, what devotion of mind can there be in one who fasts not so as to be free for God and for prayers, but so as to indulge his own pleasures all day, idle and free? Although, then, you who are such, brother, return home in the evening, although you eat when the sun is already going down, you may seem to have eaten late, but not to have fasted to the Lord. For you cannot seem to have done the Lord's will while indulging your own pleasure. For this is the Lord's will: that we fast from food and from sins alike. We lay abstinence upon the body so that we may the more be able to keep the soul from vices. For an exhausted body is a kind of bridle on a luxurious soul. Whoever fasts and sins seems to have made a profit on food, not on salvation; and by sparing his provisions to have filled his storeroom, not to have fattened his mind with virtues. Some, forgetful of the precepts, exercise the power of mastery over their slaves and subordinates in such a way that in these days they do not hesitate to beat them with whips, afflict them with punishments, and hobble them with fetters; and if perhaps, when they come to eat, the servant is a little late, they at once tear him with blows, and glut themselves on the servant's blood before the pleasure of the meal. Such is the fast of these men, a fast kept not to call down the mercy of the Godhead but to pour out the cries of a groaning household. But whoever desires to merit mercy from God must himself first be merciful. For it is written: “With the measure with which you have measured, it will be measured back.” And, what is more to be lamented, a Christian master does not spare a Christian slave in these days, not considering at all that if he is a slave by condition, he is nonetheless a brother by grace. For in like manner he puts on Christ, he shares in the same sacraments; he has the same God as Father as you do; why should he not have you as a brother? For there are many who, returning from hunting, take more care of their dogs than of their slaves, and make the dogs lie or sleep beside them, serving them their daily food with their own hands, while they do not know whether their slaves are dying of hunger; and, what is worse, unless things have been diligently prepared for the dogs, the slave is punished on the dog's account. For you see in some houses sleek and fat dogs running about, but men walking about faint and staggering. Will these men ever take pity on the poor, who do not take pity on their own servants at home? We ought to know, then, brothers, that the fast acceptable to God is this: if we not only chastise our bodies with abstinence but also clothe our souls with humility. Let us be gentle to our servants, kind to strangers, merciful to the poor; rising at first dawn let us hasten to church, give thanks to God, ask pardon for our sins, begging forgiveness for past offences and watchfulness for future ones; let there be constant prayer or reading for us all day. Let one who does not know letters seek out a holy man and be fed by his conversation. Let no business of the world hinder the business of the Godhead; let no game at the board call the mind away, no pleasure in dogs cloud the senses, no profit of trade pervert the soul with greed. For whatever you do apart from God's commandment, though you abstain, you do not fast. For this is the saving fast: that as the body abstains from feasts, so the soul is reined in from vices. This too, brothers, must not be passed over for the perfection of the fast: that we who abstain and do not dine at this time should pay out our meals to our brothers and the poor. For this is true righteousness: if while you are hungry the poor man is filled with your food, and you, fasting, pray to the Lord for your offences, and he, filled, entreats for you. Both will profit you: your hunger and the fullness of the beggars. But whoever abstains so as to give nothing of his meals to the poor seems to have made his fast a profit for himself and to have carried on a trade by saving. For he abstained, not to please God, but so as not to spend more. And so, [without] good almsgiving, fasting is a kind of trade: to live so sparingly as to surpass monks and clerics in abstinence—except for this difference, that they do it for the sake of gain, we for salvation; they wear down their souls for the profit of money, we chastise our bodies for the gain of souls. The end.

Some Christians, brothers, thinking that they keep the precepts of the Godhead more religiously, pass over the devotion of Lent, whose beginning we keep today, and falsely claim to keep a Fifty Days, though this is neither commanded in the divine Scriptures nor handed down by the authority of our elders. They do this, then, only from the presumption of their own mind, and while they think they act more devoutly they behave more superstitiously. He says he keeps the Fifty Days who perhaps can hardly fulfil the Forty. It is good, indeed, to fast at all times, but better to fast the Forty Days with Christ. For the Lord consecrated this Lent for us by his fast. I said “fast,” not “fasts”; for the Lord's fast was one, since for forty continuous days and nights he took no food at all. Whatever Christian, then, does not fulfil the consecrated Lent by fasting will be held guilty of transgression and contumacy, because by dining he himself cancels a law divinely given for his salvation. For you cancel the law if you do not keep the example of the Lord's fast. What kind of Christian are you, when the Lord fasts and you dine? What kind of Christian are you, when Christ hungers and you refresh yourself? He endures hunger for your salvation; are you afraid to fast for your sins? Tell me, I ask you who dine in Lent: are you not guilty in your consciences that, while the whole people abstains, you alone devour against the Lord's precept? Do you not blush when you go out in public, lest someone who is fasting meet you? Or do you not consider, when you come to church, how you will offer the peace to the bishop, lest perhaps he reprove you by the very breath of your kiss? If perhaps you do not consider these things, perhaps you are greatly mistaken; for you ought to know that when in the days of Lent a man who has dined meets one who is fasting, the one who fasts does not judge well of him. I say this because I hear that many—which is graver—of the faithful abstain on alternate weeks in Lent and violate that consecrated number of days by the intemperance of the gullet: that is, they dine through the course of seven days and fast for the space of seven days. To them I say: why do they also cheat themselves by fasting through those seven days, since such a fast does not profit them? For though someone abstains on certain days, though he does not take the sweeter nourishment of foods, still the Lenten fast is not credited to one who does not fast for forty days. I am ashamed to say it: old men and little old women keep Lent; young men and young women do not. Let us, then, celebrate this most sacred season with all care; let no day pass us without fasting, let not one week go by us without vigils. For he keeps Lent who by fasting and keeping vigil goes up to Easter. For as in the rest of the year fasting earns a reward, so in Lent not fasting is a sin; for those fasts are voluntary, these necessary; those come from free choice, these from the law; to those we are invited, to these we are compelled. But let us see where this most sacred number of forty days had its beginning. We read first in the Old Testament, in the times of Noah, when criminal iniquity had taken hold of the whole race of men, that for that number of days, with the floodgates of heaven opened, rains of water poured down, and, by a certain mystery of Lent, when the flood was brought upon the world, what took place was not so much a deluge as a baptism. It plainly was a baptism, by which iniquity was taken away in the sinners and righteousness preserved in Noah. So now too the Lord has given us Lent after the pattern of that time: so that, the number of days being appointed and the heavens opened, the rain of heavenly mercy may bedew us, and, a flood being made through baptism, the shower of the saving washing may enlighten us; and as was done then by the waves of waters, so now the iniquity of offences may be quenched in us and the righteousness of the virtues preserved. For the same principle as under Noah now also applies; for baptism is a deluge to the sinner and a consecration to the faithful. For by the Lord's washing righteousness is saved and unrighteousness killed, as we see done in one and the same man, the apostle Paul, who, before he was washed by spiritual precepts, was a blasphemer, a persecutor, and Saul. But when the rain of the heavenly washing poured upon him, the blasphemer is killed, the persecutor is killed, Saul too is killed; the apostle is brought to life, the righteous man is brought to life, Paul too is brought to life. So completely did he lose the old man with his deeds that with his morals he changed his name too. Whoever, then, keeps the Lord's commands in this devotion of Lent, the devilish impiety in him will be killed and the apostolic grace preserved; and, succeeding himself in a manner, he dies in the part in which he is a sinner and is brought to life in the part in which he is righteous. Let us see also whether we can find this mystical number forty elsewhere in the Scriptures. We read that holy Moses fed the children of Israel in the wilderness with heavenly manna through the course of forty years. A good number, then, which always opens heaven; a good number, I say, by which Noah's righteousness is saved and the children of Israel are fed. So let us too keep this number, and let the heavens be opened to us, so that the rain of heavenly grace may bedew us and the manna of the spiritual sacraments refresh us; for, like our fathers, by this observance of Lent we are both justified and fed: justified by the washing, fed by the sacraments. But someone will say that the children of Israel did not fast in the wilderness when they were filled with manna. But I say that they then gave themselves only to abstinence, and that is why they merited the grace of heavenly nourishment. First, because the desert is all fasting, since the anxiety of solitude drives away the desire for food; then, in the wilderness, where would choice feasts come from? Where precious wines? Where any substance at all for the space of forty years? We understand, then, that the children of Israel fasted, because we know that they lacked plenty of food and took food when it pleased the Lord who gave it. He fasts long enough who refreshes himself according to Christ's will. So much did the abstinence of the children of Israel in the wilderness please the Saviour that the intemperance of some among them was even marked; so that whoever, more greedy, had gathered for himself a double portion of food in the morning was struck with this injury, that he was found to have kept for himself not so much food as worms: so that, because he had desired beyond a moderate meal, he was goaded, as it were, like worms, by certain stings of conscience. Let us too, then, brothers, keeping the daily and moderate fasts of Lent, and as though placed in the wilderness, think nothing of worldly delights; let no sweetness of bodily desires tempt us. Let us be sober, let us be chaste; while we have our dealings in the cities, let us possess the desert in our mind. If we act so with abstinence, we shall be refreshed with the nourishment of heavenly manna, and pricked by no stings of worms.